Jennifer Atanasovski — UX Communication Design: Storyteller & Curator
Jennifer leverages her creative skill set to help shape the future of Ford.
Jennifer leverages her creative skill set to help shape the future of Ford.
Jennifer Atanasovski strives to live every aspect of her life creatively. This is seen through her choice of school, the College for Creative Studies in Detroit where she was a fine arts major studying painting and figure sculpture, through the home she and her husband have rehabbed in Detroit, and through her involvement in the independent film industry as a production designer, telling visual stories on screen. Most importantly, she’s found a way to express her creative instincts through her work at Ford as a user experience (UX) communication designer.
Jennifer’s career at Ford has been a diverse one, spanning across many different design mediums and departments. She first became interested in the automotive world after a friend in industrial design suggested she look into an automotive internship. After exploring other parts of the industry, including clay modeling full- and third-scale vehicle exteriors and interiors for a few years, Jennifer took her first job at Ford in the Color and Materials department. There she led the charge in fighting for the iconic grabber blue exterior color based on her insights of the economic and political trends that existed when it was first released in 1969. The team initially did not want to go forward with the color, but her hard work paid off and grabber blue wound up being on the car for four years, accounting for 10 percent of the take rate in its very first year.
“I never thought that I’d be able to take any of the skill sets that I developed on the outside and find a way to have them feed into my work that I do every day. So I think it’s important to always follow your passion because you never know where it’s going to lead you.”
She has since moved on from the Color and Materials department to her current position in UX where she gets to orchestrate and create visual elements and physical models to communicate the most effective story. Jennifer is deeply involved in UX organizational design and training, and strives to allow UX to serve as a catalyst to disrupt how the company delivers great products and services to its customers. “I never thought that I’d be able to take any of the skill sets that I developed on the outside and find a way to have them feed into my work that I do every day," she says. "So I think it’s important to always follow your passion because you never know where it’s going to lead you.”
Jennifer’s position is one that combines all of her creative skill sets into one job. She’s most excited about her ability to utilize trend forecasting to protect Ford’s core business and create new opportunities. She takes the trends she sees in the world across a variety of subjects – everything from economic to societal trends – and uses them to inform Ford’s design in the future. “What’s exciting is that I’m part of an organization that’s helping shape the future of the company, in that we’re going to change the way people perceive that … that we’re more than a car company,” she says. “We’re going to affect people’s lives and make their lives better through the work that we’re doing.”